Primary grade students will enjoy seeing farm life, as well as, other life which co-habits a farm. Across the bottom margin of each right-hand page are miniatures of: a pig, wheat, a frog, barn owl,  pea pod, ant, bee, and a sheep. These are the animals and crops  given a  few sentences ( three or four), on a page or two in this book as the reader tours a farm.

The idea of wild and domestic plants and animals successfully co-habitating the same area is well represented, though not directly stated.

I think this is an important book to have available so that students facing similar circumstances (and there are a lot of them out there), can know they are not alone, that other families are coping with the same struggles.  Told from the point of view of a young girl, it tells of her feelings after her mother has been taken away to stay at a “prison for women without papers.”  It doesn’t sugar-coat things:  when she asks Papa when Mama is coming home, he can’t tell her — only reassures her that Mama loves her very, very much and would never stay away too long if she could help it.  It tells of Papa spending his evening writing letters to judges and politicians and reporters that go unanswered.  It tells of visiting her Mama and how hard it was to leave, and of the tapes Mama is able to send with bedtime stories recorded, which give her comfort.  It does offer a happy ending, which may not be what all children will get, but offers a sense of hope.

Beatrice Bunny and Bear become best friends one spring. After a busy summer and fall doing everything together, Bear goes away to hibernate without telling Beatrice. When Beatrice finally discovers about hibernation, she plans to turn it into a sleepover with Bear. When Beatrice can’t sleep, “Beatrice had a brilliant idea. ‘I’ll share winter with Bear!’ “ With squirrel’s help, Beatrice created a book of winter things and activities which Bear missed while hibernating. Finally when Bear reappears in the spring, Beatrice has the perfect gift –– The Great Scrapbook of Winter Delights and Adventures for Bear, by Beatrice. “It was the perfect gift to read together again and again.”

Mônica Carnesi’s happy energetic illustrations are the perfect addition to her text, proving once again, a picture is worth a thousand words.

I love these books!  This is the third one by this pair I’ve gotten, the others being A Leaf Can Be… and Water Can Be…, and I have loved them all.  The illustrations are fabulous and support the text, which is poetical.  With just a couple words per page, the text serves to list different forms and contexts in which we encounter rocks, from mountains to paving stones to the moon.  In order to make the rhyming work, the words are often figurative, and just in case the illustrations aren’t enough to aid the reader in deducing the author’s meaning, pages in the back of the book offer further explanation for each of the names given to rocks in the main body of the book.  An excellent resource to accompany a unit on rocks, as well as a beautiful choice for casual reading.

It’s got cute illustrations, but the text left me a little flat.  Told in rhyme, it is the story of a mouse who finds a shoe, wanders around trying to find who it belongs to, and when it finally is offered to him by the kangaroo who tossed it because it hurt his feet, the mouse turns it into a bed for himself.  The rhyming seemed a bit forced at times, and lacked the rhythm that makes it easy to read aloud smoothly.

This is a such a natural addition to the Sheep in a Jeep and Sheep in  a Shop collection that I can’t believe it took them this long to create it.  It’s got all the rhyme and alliteration that make the other books such great tools for having emergent readers study word construction.  And the rhythm and rhyme give aid in naturally fluent reading.  And the illustrations are sweet and add to the telling of the story.  It’s a counting book as the collie’s efforts help one more and then one more sheep fall asleep.  And besides, with the reputation sheep have for helping us sleep, it makes a perfect bedtime story.

Written in the form of rhyming questions, and accompanied by delightful illustrations that capture the word-play of the text, this book teaches the collective terms for groups of animals while imagining what these groups might be getting up to (e.g. “Does a pack of wolves load up bags for vacation? Does a cast of hawks get a standing ovation?”).  I learned a thing or two reading this book: I knew a group of crows was a murder and a group of tigers an ambush, but I had never heard of a crash of rhinos or a shiver of sharks or a parcel of penguins.  A glossary in the back provides the common-usage definitions for all the collective terms included in the book, in case young readers didn’t understand the illustrations or word play.  I just wish it would have had (if anyone knows) reasons for how these collective terms evolved (a prickle of porcupines seems obvious enough, but why a rumba of rattlesnakes?).  This could be an excellent discussion topic for students after reading.

Utterly charming! Sure to be a classic! A beautiful story on many levels!  The large format sets off the fabulous illustrations wonderfully.  The characters and the circumstances of the story are very believable and relatable, with a bit of adventure thrown in to get the message across.  Three bear siblings, up to mischief while mom is away, accidentally break her favorite shell, and rather than face her wrath, decide that if they can replace it she’ll never have to know.  And so they set off in a small row boat on their quest.  After venturing far from home and searching high and low, with still no shell to be found, they start quarreling over who’s at fault for getting them into this mess, but when a big storm kicks up they stop worrying over fault and they each own up to the part they played, and head for home ready to confess.  Back home they bask in mom’s forgiveness, in the form of hugs and kisses and a warm supper, but they don’t get any dessert.  What kid can’t relate?  I think it’s fabulous!

Twins Noah and Emma and their volcanologist father have traveled from Hawaii to spend a year in Alaska.  Noah thinks Alaska is the most boing place on Earth and cannot wait to return to Hawaii.  Their dad wants to take measurements on a dormant volcano on an island and Emma wants to see an eagle’s nest.  Their neighbor, Alex, goes along as a guide.  Almost immediately, the mountain begins grumbling and before they know it, they are in real danger.  They race back to the boat, hoping their dad has made it back as well.  Throughout their rush, they encounter quaking, poisonous gases, choking ash, sticky mud flows, and molten lava.  The action is fast and the story is sprinkled with many volcanic facts.  Additional volcano information is found in the back.  Fans of the “I Survived” series by Lauren Tarshis will be attracted by this and other books in the “Disaster Strikes” series.